I had a very good friend who became increasingly fundamentalist over the years I knew him. What got to me was the matter of fact way he would tell me that I was going to hell. I would ask if I was a good person, he would say yes but would still say that I was going to hell for my failure to believe.

As a fairly fundamentalist atheist myself I am not that bothered but I do not really understand how anybody could 'worship' an entity that they believe is going to send their perfectly nice friends to hell???!!

That doesent sound like a god that even if proven to exist I would wish to pay any kind of homage to or offer respect to. For many fundamentalists of all faiths belief in god is more important than how you behave which seems bizarre and paints a picture of a divinity that is incredibly egotistical with some serious identity issues. (I wont prove I exist but i will require people to believe in me. I will lay down rules for behaviour but will treat faith as trumping behaviour). This does not sound like the benevolent merciful god of the new testament at all.

If I am proven wrong and the god I encounter looks anything like this poor demented creature I think I will I will take my etarnal punishment with a sense of proud resignation. I cant imagine that any 'heaven' created by the fundamentalists god (of any religion) would be much better that an eternity in the fiery pit!

Best regards

Goat

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"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." - George Bernard Shaw

I personally have issues with participating in the worship of a deity that would send perfectly nice people who leave positive impacts on other to a place of eternal damnation just because those people donâ€™t know about/acknowledge that deityâ€™s existence as well! It seems funny to me that the relationships with people and strides taken to improve the quality of life for others isnâ€™t even taken into consideration when it comes to the afterlife for some people: itâ€™s just picking the â€œrightâ€ religion. If that god does exist, I still wonâ€™t partake in the religion. Personally, Iâ€™d sooner just go to Hell then spend all eternity with that egomaniac.

I also donâ€™t keep friends that tell me I am going to go to Hell. I donâ€™t think that is very nice, and there is no reason for me to put up with it. When I am told that I am going to burn, etc., I usually just reply that I do not believe that Hell or say that it couldnâ€™t have been much worse than my childhood.

I would say that people who tell you that you're going to burn in hell are not your friends, whatever they think.

I believe it to be the height of arrogant rudeness to try to impose your narrow view of the worl onto others. Unfortunately it seems that religious zealots of all flavours suffer from the defect that they "know" they are right.

I say you should never trust anyone who says he/she "knows" the truth about anything. Intellectual honesty requires that we must always allow for the possibility that we are wrong and you can never have an intelligent discussion/debate with someone who does not concede that small but very important point.

I usually counter such rubbish by saying something like "Well, I don't believe in life after death at all, but if I'm wrong, at least I'll have the benefit of knowing it."

Of course, this may not be your POV and that is fine, but I'm sure you can think of something suitable to say. On the other hand showing a complete indifference to these sorts of people may be the best plan. They really hate it when their little attempts to frighten you are greeted with a simple shrug of the shoulders and an expression on your face that says "what have you been smoking?"

yeah, I'm suprised the Bible hasn't been bannd by one of those religious groups thats always trying to ban books...

I'll call one of them up somtime and say 'I found this book with really bad and unchristian stuff, and they're giving it to really small kids!!!' then read the warning of content from the picture. then they be all like "OMG! we totally have to ban this book whats it called?" "the Bible." *click*

daftbeaker wrote:But if I stop bugging you I'll have to go back to arguing with Qwerty about whether beauty is truth and precisely what we both mean by 'purple'

Any statistical increase in the usage of the emoticon since becoming Admin should not be considered significant, meaningful, or otherwise cause for worry.

Well... There have been many books within the Christian Bible that have been banned in the past. Also, laypeople were not allowed to read it until about 500 years ago because the church was worried they would interpret it for themselves! There has been a lot of redaction to the Bible, but I think most of the cuts were due to theology not violence.

By the way, I enjoyed the illustration. I feel it's along the lines of when schools have to put stickers in science text books that say that evolutions is "only a theory."